PARKER, Richard II.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Dec. 1421

Family and Education

s. of John Parker of Great Waltham, Essex, by Apechild Park. m. 1da.1

Offices Held

Yeoman of the prince of Wales’s kitchen by 1409-1413, the royal kitchen 1413-c.1422.

Parker of Byfleet, Surr. (by appointment of the prince) 15 Aug. 1409-36, jt. parker 26 Nov. 1436-aft. 1442.

Biography

How Parker came to enter the service of Henry of Monmouth is not revealed. On 8 Sept. 1406, however, he was given a grant, under the seal of the principality of Wales, of five marks a year. This award described him simply as one of the prince’s servants, but by 1409, when the prince appointed him parker of Byfleet, he was a ‘yeoman of his household’. After Henry’s accession, Parker not only continued in his employment, but was granted, in July 1414 and from the issues of Byfleet, another annuity of five marks. In the next year he took part, with a following of three archers, in the royal expedition to France, and in 1418 he was awarded a corrody at Spalding priory.2

Parker had no known personal connexion with Lyme Regis, and his return for the borough in 1421 is attributable either to his position in the royal household (from which, however, he must have been absent at the time), or to his acquaintance with (Sir) Thomas Brooke*, who held estates in and around the town, although the earliest record of his association with Brooke dates only from 1432.3

After confirmation of his parkership of Byfleet by the Council in 1423, Parker continued in the royal service, and in 1429 he embarked for France again, this time to join the retinue of the duke of Bedford. He had evidently attained armigerous rank by 1434, being so described when listed among the gentry of Surrey who were to take the generally prescribed oath not to maintain breakers of the peace. From 1436 on he shared the Spalding corrody with his son-in-law, John Penycock, another yeoman of the Crown, who from 1442 also received half of his salary at Byfleet. In March 1444 he settled land in Felstead, Essex, on his grandson, Lancelot, but nothing is recorded of him thereafter.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. CPR, 1441-6, pp. 254-5.
  • 2. E101/69/5/438; E404/31/296; DKR, xliv. 573; SC6/813/23; C64/9 m. 10; CPR, 1413-16, p. 236.
  • 3. Dorset Feet of Fines, ii. 308.
  • 4. DKR, xlviii. 264; CPR, 1422-9, p. 95; 1429-36, p. 380; 1436-41, p. 41; 1441-6, pp. 57, 254-5; CCR, 1435-41, p. 103.